In the beginning, it was naturally found necessary to place some restrictions on the slave and his movements. He was not allowed to leave his master's plantation without written permission and if he did go away, any person could apprehend the offender and take him before a justice of the peace, who was empowered to order the infliction of stripes at his discretion. Furthermore, he was not to wander off to any other plantation without the written permission of his owner, with the provision in this instance that he was not to be taken before a justice of the peace, but before his owner, who was entitled to inflict ten lashes upon the offender. Should the slave be found carrying any powder, shot, a gun, club, or any weapon he could be apprehended by any free person and taken before a justice and a much severer penalty exacted in the form of thirty-nine lashes, "well laid on, on the bare back."[289] It is clear that this law was drawn up to keep the slave from becoming a public menace and not as a sign of absolute restriction on the servant, for it was further provided in Section 6 that in case the slave lived in a frontier community he could go to the local justice of the peace and secure a permit to keep and use guns, powder, shot and other weapons for either offensive or defensive purposes. This permission was to be indorsed by any free Negro, mulatto or Indian and did not necessarily involve the approval of the owner of the slave. It was declared unlawful for slaves to engage in riots, unlawful assemblies, in trespasses or in seditious speech and, if so accused, they were to be taken before the local justice who was to punish them at his discretion. But the Negroes themselves were not to be considered as the only guilty ones. In order to prevent any such disorderly meetings no owner of slaves was to be allowed to permit any slave not belonging to him to remain on his plantation for more than four hours at any one time under a nominal penalty to such owner of $2; but, if he allowed more than five such slaves to assemble on his property, he was to be fined more severely. If such a group were brought together by the written permission of the owner and for business reasons, however, there was involved no offense whatever.[290] It was realized that oftentimes the chief leaders in the unlawful meetings of slaves were free Negroes and sympathetic whites. Were any such to be found present they were to be arrested and if found guilty when tried before a justice of the peace, should be fined 15 shillings, to be paid, not to the court, but to the informer and if the money was not forthcoming the court was to have twenty lashes inflicted--no matter whether the convicted be white or black. Inasmuch as the degree of punishment of the slaves for being present at such a meeting was not specified it would seem that the legislature meant that the free persons involved should be treated more severely than slaves by the court.